Thursday, July 02, 2009

Conversations

A post in two parts.

Part 1

A while ago, I struck up a virtual friendship with a fellow I met via the internet. We took to chatting a little during the work day, which was great when things were slow, and amusing when I was busy. He's a computer guy, so I asked him a bunch of questions and he was helpful. When we started chatting, I was experiencing the unraveling of my relationship with Kent and was particularly mopey. Every time I said something about being sad, my internet friend would tell me to cheer up, much to my annoyance. At the same time, he was getting together with a long-time crush and was often ecstatically happy. I was as happy for him as I could be and I chimed in with encouragement and advice when asked.

We're still chatting from time to time, usually initiated by him, but our relationship plot lines have switched. He is in the midst of a relationship crisis with his would-be girlfriend, while I am happily engaged in my fledgling relationship with Curt. So, what do we talk about now? His heartbreak. How he can't sleep. How much he misses her. Etc. If I mention anything else, it all goes back to her. I never tell him to cheer up, instead, I sympathize, tell him to not to pressure her and take care of himself. I don't point out that when our situations were roughly reversed he only ever told me to get happy.

The problem is, I am tired of chatting with him. I think he is a good guy but he is awfully selfish. I don't even know if my words, kind though they may be, are of any comfort to him. Even if they were, reciprocity is completely lacking in our virtual friendship. I want out. How do I get out, though? I have no idea. I've had this problem before and I didn't manage to handle it gracefully then. Suggestions welcome.

Part 2

As I mentioned, I showed the blog to Curt. Yesterday, he told me he'd read some of it and said "it's very well written." Aww, you know how to flatter me. He also said he understood better my feelings about him reading the blog after reading my post about our discussion (um, I'm pretty sure that wasn't well written). I was surprised because I thought I'd merely transcribed our conversation and not elaborated at all (upon re-reading, I realize that I did elaborate slightly). Anyway. What he said next was really interesting, "I'm worried that the blog could be a way for you to communicate things with me that you wouldn't say otherwise." Wow. I'm getting a lot of credit for thinking ahead that I don't deserve. I've never purposefully used the blog like that, but I can see what he means. It took reading about our conversation for it to 'click' with him. But maybe that's more about him than me?

Overall, he was mostly comfortable and pleased with the way I'd written about him. "I look pretty good." I said, "You are pretty good. You should be flattered." He also said that he didn't want me to feel constrained in what I wrote, which would seem to contradict the sentiment above, a contradiction he acknowledged. I think that's really sweet but it's also inevitable that I will restrain myself and take his feelings into consideration. However, even if he didn't care at all what I said about him, I'm not terribly inclined to write angsty posts these days, nor would I ever be inclined to have a current boyfriend read such posts--about himself, no less! So, that won't be going on here. I'll continue to seek out other topics and include minor boyfriend-related incidents as appropriate. I guess all that is to say that while life isn't angst-free it's far from the dominant sentiment these days, which is quite a relief.